


Scattered Light

by GStK



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7226737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How beautiful it was that we chose to be ourselves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scattered Light

‘Kayochin,’ says Honoka.

‘Y-yes?’ Hanayo replies. Her face is bright red.

And steadily getting redder, from the looks of it. ‘Kayochin,’ Honoka repeats, more seriously. She leans forward on her hands, and Hanayo twitches, a nervous give in her shoulders – as if she means to back away. ‘Kayochin. Kayochin. Kayo _chin_.’

‘Yes…‘

‘ _Kayo_ chin. Kayochin? Kayochin...’ Suddenly, Honoka surges up; her hands jump to her chest, and she slams her foot onto the desk. Hanayo jolts. ‘Ka♪yo♪CH _IIIN_ —‘

‘Honoka-chan!’

Honoka’s foot slips. The desk nearly falls on its side. Hanayo gasps, and Honoka makes a desperate attempt to save herself, arms flying through the air as if she thinks she’s swimming.

But she sticks the landing. The classroom is silent except for their skittering breaths, bathed yellow-red in dying sunlight, and that’s one thing gone right.

At the very least – that’s one thing.

‘… too much?’ Honoka asks, hesitantly. Hanayo peeks one eye open to look at her; with her tentative nod, Honoka sinks to her knees. ‘Ehehe… sorry. I got a little bit carried away.’

So she shuts her own eyes in embarrassment, feels the familiar burn of her own sheepish smile. Hanayo doesn’t answer, so Honoka flutters her eyes open to look at her – and there Hanayo is, staring at her, with this weird, squishy look on her face. Honoka recognises it immediately.

(It’s a familiar look: reluctance, narrowed eyes, like when you’re about to board a train with too many people on it.)

‘Do we really have to?’ Hanayo wonders, and that snaps Honoka back to reality.

‘Well… no.’ She shifts up on her knees – plants her elbows on the desk, and she’s looking at Hanayo, head docked in her hands. ‘We don’t _have_ to. I just thought…’

‘… “Kayochin,”’ says Hanayo softly, ‘Is kind of… Rin-chan’s thing.’

And that’s fair. It really is. Hanayo misunderstands Honoka’s tired sigh, the way her hands fall and she rolls her chin onto the desk. ‘I know,’ she says, and she knows as much as she wants to mope, she can’t. Honoka twists her head, catches her eye, and goes in for what she hopes is a convincing smile. ‘It’s okay.’

Hanayo is not convinced.

‘I-I-I mean – if you want to! Y-you can! I don’t mind it at all!’ The desk jolts – again – as Hanayo reels back and starts waving her hands. Honoka flinches, the jar of teeth hitting teeth rendering her momentarily wordless. ‘I’m sure Rin-chan would understand – it’s just special, um – not that this isn’t s-s-special – it’s! It’s – ah _HHHH_!?’

‘Ah!’ Honoka agrees. She surges to her feet and – in what turns out to be a very clumsy plan – throws herself over the table, grabbing Hanayo’s hands. Hanayo gapes at her, flustered, grateful to be saved from an early and unfortunate death-by-chair –

– until the desk finally tips, sideways, and they are both utterly doomed.

 **CRASH**.

… and then…

Silence. The hollow sound of pencils rolling across a floor, escaping Hanayo’s A-RISE pencil case.

The gentle keen of a suppressed whine in the back of Honoka’s throat, high-pitched and airy.

‘… ow,’ says Hanayo.

‘Oww _wwww_ ,’ Honoka agrees.

This would be the moment, Honoka thinks wildly, in a Saturday morning cartoon, where they start laughing. The ending song would play, there’d be a second flash of promos (Honoka’s Misadventures, _brought to you by these sponsors—_ ), and maybe if they were lucky, a voice-over of what to expect next time.

Hanayo looks like she’s thinking the same thing. Sort of – the worried trail of her eyes to the door promises something more like a horror film, like she expects a teacher to jump out at them at any time. Her legs jitter, and not just from pain; they sit in silence, and they wait.

But nobody comes. And that’s… one thing gone right, at least.

Honoka races after errant writing utensils while Hanayo struggles to her feet. By the time she is standing, Honoka has set the desk right, her pencils and her glasses case, and started studying the floor for clues. Hanayo checks that her glasses are safe while Honoka fixes the chair – and in the aftermath, they stand there, watching each other across created space.

‘I –‘

‘We,’ Hanayo says at the same time; she shrinks back when she realises she’s interrupting. Honoka’s jaw clicks shut until she continues. ‘… we should probably get going.’

Honoka’s shoulders sink. But what she says is, ‘Okay.’

So they do.

The school bell doesn’t chime when they walk through the gates.

* * *

‘… I like the idea, but we haven’t found anything that works…’

 _Not yet_. But that “not yet” is not yet present in Hanayo’s voice. She sounds awkward, defeated, like the sweep of dry leaves as the wind clears their path.

You would never think summer is coming, but it is.

‘I know. It’s really hard…’ Honoka hangs her head, and her shoulders slump. She watches her own two feet as they climb the stairs, and then she watches Hanayo’s, just a couple steps behind. This is the long way home.

‘But I thought – you know, everybody calls you “Hanayo-chan.” And it’s really cool, um, how Nozomi-chan calls Eli “Elicchi.” I wanted to try something like that.’

Hanayo chips in. ‘And then came “Pana.”’ It’s a memory that comes easily, just like it was yesterday morning – and it was. It feels like they’ve been at this forever, but it was only yesterday morning. ‘Which was – it was cute,’ she allows, ‘Really. Because you like bread… but in front of everyone else…’

‘It didn’t work,’ Honoka sighs. The anxiousness starts to sprout in Hanayo’s expression again; before it can emerge, Honoka slaps the final stair with her shoe. Hanayo nearly jumps out of her skin, stopping. ‘But neither did anything else! Hana-chan, Hanayo, Koikoi-chan,’—Hanayo hides her face—‘But they were all… I don’t know… weird!’

Frustrated, Honoka stamps her feet. The charms on her bag jingle noisily; there is no one around but them.

When she turns around, Hanayo has a nervous smile waiting in the wings.

‘I… I think “Hanayo-chan” is okay.’

‘But _everyone calls you that_ ,’ Honoka stresses. It’s more tired than angry, at this point. She squeezes her eyes shut and hits the side of her head a couple times. ‘You’re supposed to call each other something special after you get together! Those are the rules. Right?’

Except – Hanayo wasn’t the one to read that couples’ article in Nico’s magazine. Hanayo probably doesn’t know the first thing about getting together in the first place. But no, nonono – that’s so rude!

‘It’s true, though,’ Hanayo says, and Honoka realises she’s thinking out loud. There’s a hot flush spread across Hanayo’s cheeks. ‘I don’t know the first thing about being, um… girlfriends.’

Neither does Honoka. Actually, Honoka has quickly begun to realise she doesn’t know what that word _means_. She frowns like she’s disheartened; her face is hot too, though, and Hanayo smiles again in sympathy.

‘”Hanayo-chan” is fine. Really. Because…’ She takes in a deep breath, then releases it all suddenly. She steps forward onto the same landing as Honoka, bringing them into heart-skipping proximity. ‘I can’t really explain it, but it’s like… _Honoka-chan_.’

And she has that squishy look on her face again.

(The familiar one. The one that’s like boarding a train with too many people on it, or maybe like stepping off the platform when there’s nothing but thin air to catch you. It’s that look you wear when you hope – expect – that someone will be there to break your fall. That there will be a hand to guide you to the ground.)

That look that sends Honoka’s heart into her throat, the same one she must wear when she looks at Hanayo, twenty times a day.

‘Oh!’ Hanayo says. Honoka doesn’t understand why, until she looks down and notices that their hands are now clasped.

Little by little, little by little. She thinks she gets it.

‘… but still, that’s so _booooring_!’ Honoka complains. It comes later, when the long road home has come to an end, when they are standing outside the Homura bakery and still holding hands. (Honoka swings their arms, and Hanayo yelps as her elbow nearly hits her in the face.) ‘Isn’t the whole point of dating so you can call each other cute names? I mean…’

‘There’s more to it than that,’ Hanayo says, but neither of them stop to think about it. Because it’s only been two weeks, but they’ve both already thought about it – what their friends will say, what this will all mean if their families and their die-hard fans find out. It’s a tightness in Hanayo’s chest that Honoka can see easily; but it is a lightness in hers, a rush of unknown excitement.

She hopes, in time, Hanayo will think the same thing. She squeezes their hands to the tune of her heartbeat.

(Because, think back, and Honoka will realise how long she’s been waiting. There was a short time where μ's was her world and μ's was everything; the beat of who they are still pounds in her chest. But Hanayo has been there since the start, been just out of reach in the corner of her eye, and the ending has only brought her closer.

Life changes and that’s okay. Six months ago, and she would not have thought these things, not been in “ _like_ ” – and that’s okay.)

‘… you have that look on your face again.’

‘What look?’ parries Honoka, defensive. ‘What – what look?’ Hanayo giggles; Honoka scuttles back, slaps her face a couple times to dislodge the look she’s not wearing. ‘I’m not wearing a look! Geez!’

‘You are,’ Hanayo laughs, and it is so stunning that Honoka can only think again of how her world has opened up. The edges of Hanayo’s eyes crinkle, so Honoka turns her back on her decisively, heading towards Homura’s entrance.

‘H-Honoka-chan!?’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow!’ Honoka calls.  She sweeps the sliding door open, hears Hanayo giggle one more time – and she is definitely not fleeing.

There’s more to it than that.

* * *

(Like how the earth revolves under your feet, and some things change, and others don’t. And when it throws you, if you jump with the weight of the world – you will fly.)

‘This is _impossible_ ,’ Honoka moans, dropping her head into her textbook, willing herself to choke on the pages.

‘It’s not,’ Hanayo appeases, but she does not sound very convinced herself, hovering over Honoka’s shoulder in vain.

(Like how the idol club will always feel empty without nine, but with two, there will be enough.)

The afternoon light has not changed from the day before, and Honoka casts a baleful glance out the window, out amidst orange-yellow skies. The first flight path her eyes take is towards the roof. The second is towards the stables, obscured by the architecture of the school.

‘Honoka-chan?’ comes the confusion bordering on worry. ‘Do you want to take a break? I-If I’m not helping…’

‘No, you’re fine,’ she insists, and lifts herself from the table. She smiles at Hanayo and gets a smile back, tentative, but there it is. That’s all it takes. ‘I mean, a break would be nice, but…’

Time ticks by when she catches Hanayo’s eye.

‘… but?’

But there’s nowhere she’s really going with this, Honoka. Hanayo flusters under her gaze –

– or would, if Honoka gave her time to, but there is not even a moment to think.

Their lips meet in the span of a breath and then part, with all sound stolen from that very moment.

It is to her credit, then, that Hanayo does not pass out from embarrassment. It is to Honoka’s credit that she does not do the same, but that they laugh, fingers twining around each other’s as though they’re free of self-consciousness.

‘Hanayo-chan,’ Honoka says, but does not sing, and her mouth aches with the force of her grin. ‘Third-year math is really hard.’

Honoka agrees with a gasp: ‘Y-yeah.’ But then she dips her head, eyes darting to and fro, like she thinks she’s being mischievous. ‘It really is.’

‘… hey! Now _you’re_ the one making the face!'

‘Eh!?’

(There’s more to names and holding hands when you’re in like. It’s breaking with gravity and trusting yourself to the wind, robbed of air and robbed of weight.

And if you never come down and belong to the skies, you’ve done it.)

This is one thing gone right.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary adapted from quotes by Tyler Kent White.


End file.
